


Perfectly Reasonable

by romana03



Category: Brittas Empire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-19
Updated: 2010-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-13 19:28:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/140852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romana03/pseuds/romana03
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the run-up to Christmas, Mr Brittas is the subject of a series of bomb threats and Gavin is threatened with a visit to Tim's parents.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perfectly Reasonable

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



The sun was shining on Whitbury New Town Leisure Centre on that particular early December morning. The overnight frost was glinting in its light on the all-weather sports pitch.

"Ah ah ah ah ah ah!"

The nasal almost-click that signified Mr Brittas’ discovery of the possible infraction of one of the many local bylaws disturbed the peace of the nearly empty car park.

“Oh, Councillor Druggett,” said Brittas, clasping his hands together and almost bowing, “I hope you’re going to pick that up?”

“What?” The man out walking his dog looked startled.

Brittas pointed out the mess on the path with a flourish more suited to the unveiling of a municipal artwork.

“Oh. Of course. Out walking the dog. You’re here early, Mr Brittas.”

“The early bird catches the sleeping pool attendant who has been to a party the night before, councillor! Or the dog messing on the public byway otherwise unobserved, eh?”

“This is a car park!”

“A ball,” hypothesised Brittas, “sails over the fence from the basketball court. Little Jemima rushes after it, in her excitement not noticing it has bounced in the mess in the car park. The children continue to play, each wiping their eyes with excitement when Jeremy scores the winning goal. Then where would we be?”

“All right, all right, I said I’d clear it up.”

“No special treatment for our local dignitaries,” said Brittas with a smug smile. “Everyone’s equal here.”

“As long as they’ve filled in the membership form in triplicate and initialed every one of the four thousand eight hundred and thirty two current ‘Rules of the Centre’.”

“Excellent! Good morning, councillor.”

Walking smugly should be difficult but there was a distinct smugness discernible in Mr Brittas’ steps as he made his way to the door into his leisure centre. As he crossed the threshold, an alarm sounded inside and his staff started trailing out into the morning sun. He had obviously arrived just in time.

***

Gavin glanced around surreptitiously before pulling out his cigarettes and sitting on the kerb between two of the parked cars. Tim wasn’t actually due in until later but it was better to be safe than sorry.

“Linda,” a familiar voice called from the direction of the road, “what’s going on?”

Panic crossed Gavin’s face. He stuffed the packet and lighter back into his pocket and looked for somewhere to hide his only-just-lit cigarette until he got rid of Timmy.

“Another bomb threat,” replied Linda, “in Mr Brittas’ office again.”

“Again?” said Tim, sounding more amused than alarmed. “But I thought Mr Brittas’ office had been moved to the equipment store.”

“That was yesterday but yesterday’s bomb threat was phoned through for down there, so today his office is in the staff shower room, and guess where the bomb is supposed to be...”

Gavin peered cautiously over the boot of the car. Linda looked more concerned than amused as she brought Tim up to date. Timmy however, Gavin noted, looked like he couldn’t wait to see what Brittas would do next. Gavin pulled himself together and hid his cigarette out of sight in the rear wheel arch of the car. He circled round the other parked car, carefully staying out of sight, so that it would look like he was coming from the centre when Tim spotted him.

“Gavin!” called Tim, beckoning him over. “I can’t believe the hoaxer’s managing to keep up with the office moves. It must be someone here, who do you think it is? Julie?”

“That’s hardly likely, is it?” said Julie, joining the little group. “If I wanted to go and stand in the car park instead of working, I wouldn’t bother with all this nonsense. Got a spare fag, Gavin?”

Gavin blushed and glared at her. “Of course not,” he snapped, avoiding Tim’s suspicious look. “What are you doing here, anyway, Tim? You're not on the rota until later.” If Gavin hoped to escape the spotlight by pretending suspicion of Tim's motives, it didn't work.

“I came to see you, and I might ask you the same question, I didn't think you were supposed to be in until ten o'clock this morning.”

“I had to measure Linda before she started pool duty,” Gavin explained, perfectly reasonably.  
Tim's expression implied that he did not see the perfect reasonable-ness of the proposition.

“You had to... measure... Linda?”

“That’s right, you see I had this idea that when there are mostly children swimming, you know, school parties and things during the day, it would make sense to roster the shorter pool attendants and then when the adults are swimming in the morning and evenings, the taller pool attendants should be working. I was planning on having everyone measured and the rotas drawn up before this afternoon’s staff meeting.”

“You’re turning into Brittas!” declared Tim, in horror.

Gavin could see that he was going to have to derail this particular line of questioning before it went any further.

"Why did you come to see me?" he asked, ignoring the scurrilous accusation of Brittas-like behaviour.

"Oh, yes," said Tim. "We had a Christmas card from my Mum and Dad, they want us to come for Christmas! They said they can't wait to meet you at last. And for once, neither of us will be working on Boxing Day, so we have no excuse not to go!"

The only way to describe Gavin's expression was hunted.

"That's excellent," said a familiar, nasal voice. Gavin gaped at Mr Brittas.

"Excellent..." he parroted, in disbelief.

"That's right," agreed Brittas, "It's excellent that two chums will be able to share a family Christmas, instead of the two of you in that house you share not knowing what to do with yourselves."

Tim did not look impressed and Gavin looked like he was stuck between a rock and a hard place and he wasn't sure whether Tim or Brittas was more terrifying.

"Chums?" enquired Tim. His arms were crossed and he looked decidedly mutinous.

"I... um... I..." Gavin stuttered.

His salvation came from an unusual quarter. For once, it almost seemed like smoking might be good for Gavin's continued health as it was at that moment that Mr Brittas' car exploded. The force of the explosion knocked them all off of their feet and questions of familial ties and Christmas rotas were quite forgotten.

***

It was the nearly Christmas before the mess in the car park was completely cleaned up. The bomb threats were continuing unabated and Mr Brittas had taken to walking to work, carefully varying his route every day and only deciding where to set up his office for the day after he arrived. He had not overlooked a single opportunity to point out that no matter how many warnings he had received, it was his car and not his office that had been blown up. He pointed this out to Councillor Druggett most mornings, when he met the councillor walking his dog.

The Whitbury New Town council meetings still seemed to be dominated by the leisure centre. The other business of the council somehow never seemed to quite get to the top of the agenda. There was one person to blame for this, the councillors agreed, but no matter how many phone calls they made, and how often he moved his office, they never seemed able to convince him to go.


End file.
